IO Informatics Announces U.S. Patent for IMO-based Technology Platform; IP Protects Open, Intelligent Architecture for Building Relationships in Data.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- IO Informatics, Inc., announced today that it has been issued U.S. Patent #6,988,109 for its advanced information technology platform based on the IMO (intelligent multidimensional object).

IO Informatics' IMO is a mobile, extensible database record that transforms specific pieces of data into objects that scientists can describe, utilize, share, and relate to across application and database boundaries. IMOs can be applied to any type of data, though IO Informatics is initially focused on providing new software tools for life science.

The patent, titled "System, method, software architecture, and business model for an intelligent object based information technology platform," protects all aspects of using IMOs to build and deliver integrated "pools" of data from heterogeneous sources.

"For years, organizations have been talking about knowledge management, but have lacked the tools to fully realize this goal," said Pat Rougeau, president and CEO of IO Informatics. "This patent protects a fundamentally new way of handling data, one that allows the data itself -- not the application in which it is stored -- to dictate what it relates to and how it can be used. This valuable intellectual property positions IO Informatics as a visionary partner for organizations that want to change the way their scientists think about and use data."

The patent covers IMOs, user-definable, open objects that describe data. An IMO can point to a specific piece of data or can describe relationships between different, disparate data types stored in any number of file formats or applications. Through IMOs, users throughout an organization can view representations of and connections between data, regardless of the application in which the data is actually housed. The patent also covers IO Informatics' Sentient Suite, which provides a common, secure environment for creating and managing IMOs and the collected research knowledge that they describe.

"With the average life science company generating up to one terabyte of data per day, informatics must evolve past collecting data into static boxes that isolate the data and constrain the types of questions that can be asked," said Robert Stanley, chief technology officer at IO Informatics and one of the co-inventors on the patent. "IMOs, which transform data into portable, relational objects, have the potential to take informatics to the next level by helping scientists see and build the dynamic, meaningful relationships that are currently missed when working with data generated from different systems and workflows."

The ability to view different types of data in a format-independent, secure environment is particularly critical as biology changes its focus from fundamental research to engineering systems to accomplish particular outcomes.

"This intellectual property produces software that's self-aware and capable of reflecting the complexity of interactions in the life sciences so that scientists can, for the first time, look at all data from a systems biology perspective," said Dr. Erich Gombocz, chief scientific officer and the other co-inventor on the patent.

About IO Informatics

IO Informatics (www.io-informatics.com) is revolutionizing software methods by developing intelligent agents that enable a multidimensional approach to data integration. Through the proprietary IMO (intelligent multidimensional object) and Sentient, an interactive software environment, IO Informatics enables medical, pharmaceutical, and other life science researchers to structure and define data relationships, view these relationships, query them, and capitalize on them -- all within a secure, compliant, auditable framework that helps organizations accumulate and capitalize on research knowledge. IO Informatics is located in Emeryville, California.